Tax system
This article is about systems of taxation based on one tax. For the economic philosophy based on the writings of Henry George, see
Georgism
.
A
single tax
is a system of taxation based mainly or exclusively on one tax, typically chosen for its special properties, often being a
tax on land value
.
[1]
[2]
Pierre Le Pesant, sieur de Boisguilbert
and
Sebastien Le Prestre de Vauban
were early advocates for a single tax, but, rejecting the claim that
land
has certain economic properties which make it uniquely suitable for taxation, they instead proposed a
flat tax
on all
incomes
.
[3]
In the late 19th and early 20th century, a
populist
single tax movement emerged which also sought to levy a single tax on the rental value of land and natural resources, but for somewhat different reasons.
[4]
This "Single Tax" movement later became known as
Georgism
, after its most famous proponent
Henry George
. It proposed a simplified and equitable tax system that upholds natural rights and whose revenue is based exclusively on ground and
natural resource
rents
, with no additional taxation of improvements such as buildings. Some
libertarians
advocate land
value capture
as a consistently
ethical
and
non-distortionary
means to fund the essential operations of government, the surplus rent being distributed as a type of guaranteed
basic income
, traditionally called the
citizen's dividend
, to compensate those members of society who by legal title have been deprived of an equal share of the earth's spatial value and equal access to natural opportunities (see
geolibertarianism
).
Related taxes derived in principle from the land value tax include
Pigouvian taxes
to internalize the
external costs
of pollution more efficiently than litigation, as well as
severance taxes
on raw material extraction to regulate the depletion of unreplenishable natural resources and to prevent irreparable damage to valuable ecosystems through unsustainable practices such as
overfishing
.
There have been other proposals for a single tax concerning property, goods, or income.
[5]
Others have made proposals for a single tax based on other revenue models, such as the
FairTax
proposal for a
consumption tax
and various
flat tax
proposals on personal incomes.
[6]
See also
[
edit
]
References
[
edit
]
- ^
"English definition of "single tax"
"
. Cambridge University Press
. Retrieved
14 December
2014
.
- ^
Shearman, Thomas G. (1899).
"The Single Tax: What and Why"
.
American Journal of Sociology
.
4
(6): 742?757.
ISSN
0002-9602
.
The single tax, therefore, implies the total abolition of all taxes upon personal property, buildings, and improvements, of all custom tariffs, all excise duties, all stamp duties, all poll taxes, and, in short, every tax of every description, except that which is now levied upon the rent of bare land.
- ^
Steiner, Phillippe (2003)
"Physiocracy and French Pre-Classical Political Economy"
, Chapter 5. in eds. Biddle, Jeff E, Davis, Jon B, &
Samuels, Warren J.
:
A Companion to the History of Economic Thought
.
Blackwell Publishing
, 2003.
- ^
Young, Nichols (1916).
The single tax movement in the United States
. Princeton University Press
. Retrieved
2012-10-21
.
- ^
Seligman (1894). "The Income Tax".
Political Science Quarterly
.
9
(4): 610?648.
doi
:
10.2307/2139851
.
JSTOR
2139851
.
- ^
"Calls for single 30% income tax rate"